Modern WisdomWhat It's Actually Like Living In North Korea - Yeonmi Park | Modern Wisdom Podcast 356
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
115 min read · 23,027 words- 0:00 – 0:29
Intro
- YPYeonmi Park
He put the, this like high electricity on the, the wire fences of entire border, put the machine guns with the guards every 10 meters, and then on top of that, he buries landmines on the entire border. So, entire country became a concentration camp. So, last year only two people escaped to South Korea and then they-
- CWChris Williamson
In the whole year, the entirety of the year, two people made it out? (wind blows) Yeonmi Park, welcome to the show.
- YPYeonmi Park
Thank you for having me, Chris.
- 0:29 – 5:00
Dreams of North Korea
- YPYeonmi Park
- CWChris Williamson
Looking back now, does it feel like a dream when you think about your time living in North Korea?
- YPYeonmi Park
Totally. (laughs) You know, uh, when I was watching this movie called Inception, right, there's a very confusing part, you don't know what is dream anymore. And so when I dream, interestingly enough, I am still in North Korea. And this is the one thing that all the North Koreans share. After they've been escape, when they dream, they are still in North Korea. So, when we wake up, we still think we are in North Korea. Sometimes we have to remind each other it's not. And so I learned, like, how to pinch myself. That's why I heard, like, if you pinch and if it painful, that's like you know it's reality. And so I do pinch myself a lot, many, many days.
- CWChris Williamson
What were you dreaming about when you were in North Korea?
- YPYeonmi Park
The themes are very similar, right? Like, always how do we find food, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YPYeonmi Park
Begging the neighbors, going around town, and also thinking about escape. How are we gonna escape? There is flood happening in the summertime. The guards is watching and always looking for ways to survive. It's never a bad, like, cheer and having a happy moment. Or sometimes, like, I go back North Korea and my neighbors are recognizing me, that I'm the enemy, and they try to punish me. So, always like that kind of dream, like running away, you know? Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't it weird that while you were there, you were dreaming of being away-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and while you're here, you're now dreaming of being back? It's kind of like you can never leave, in a way.
- YPYeonmi Park
No. I don't think it's possible. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but all North Koreans have that same theme. I asked every North Korean that I meet, and they always say the same thing. So, something about it, I don't know why. I can... I don't know what other dissidents do, like the people who escaped Cuba or Venezuela if they do the same thing. But at least when it comes to North Koreans, we somehow are not able to live our, you know, North Korean in our dreams.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the closest that you've been back to North Korea? Have you been to the DMZ?
- YPYeonmi Park
I have not been to DMZ but I've been to very close North Korea during the balloon launches. I don't know if you heard about it. There are NGOs that we, uh, use balloons and sending leaflets to North Korea, and it pops it in the North Korean sky. So, inside the leaflets we have, you know, like, you know, talking about how Kims are dictators. So, doing those balloon launch, we had to go really near the border-
- CWChris Williamson
Where are you?
- YPYeonmi Park
... from North Korea. In South Ko- from South Korea-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, yeah.
- YPYeonmi Park
... to do that. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then you just put them up, let the wind carry them over, and they pop and-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... release pamphlets everywhere.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yep. Yes. Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think is the likelihood of people in North Korea believing what you've sent over? Because the brainwashing is pretty strong-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and it seems almost unfalsifiable that if you were to get these sort of leaflets-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... flown over, it's an easy excuse to say this is just more propaganda from the West, this is America-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... proving that they are our enemies, they're trying to brainwash you away from us.
- YPYeonmi Park
They do that, and I think in the past, uh, North Korea regime would, like, circulate these rumors. If you pick up a leaflet or something, it's gonna, you know, it's gonna... your skin gonna fall off, or is you're gonna become deaf, or your, like, tongue is gonna loose. Never pick up something that was, like, you know, coming from other country. However, you know, people are so desperate, so they, they eat whatever. So, we didn't leave, like, leaflets, we put the, like, one dollar USD and we also put some in, like, choco pies. I don't know what you... That's like a light, you know, snacks. So, they also pick them up and eat them. And, and then they realize, okay, we don't die, but of course if you're caught and doing it, somebody says that you're gonna be death sentence or sent to concentration camp. And I met a lot of student defectors who were listening to and picking up these leaflets and learned about the truth and escaped. So, I think o- sh- I'm sure there are some people do not believe it, but there's quite some people do change their, their mind and eventually escape.
- CWChris Williamson
What's a typical day in a North Korean person's
- 5:00 – 16:49
What Life is Like as a Citizen
- CWChris Williamson
life like?
- YPYeonmi Park
That is a good question, because, you know, North Korean lives are very... So, i- in America, even I was thinking about, thinking about the president, right? The life of Joe Biden and the, some peasant life in America, the farmer's life wouldn't be that different. Think about it. When they wake up, they're gonna have a shower. They have running water, they have running electricity. They have TV, they have running refrigerator. They have breakfast, lunch, dinner, right? So, even if you are like the trillionaire, life isn't that different compared to somebody in the bottom. Right? Even our homeless people here can, like, eat and drink. But in North Korea, interestingly enough, they made it, uh, they have a caste system. It is, like, very, like, ironic isn't it? Like, socialist paradise, nobody should be, like, everybody should be equal, but they... I- initially they start a country as making everybody equal-... but they made it to big three categories of caste system. Then within three categories, they are dividing into 50 different categories. So depending on what status your caste you are in, your life is vastly different. So like my case, I was born in middle class where my father was a party member. But still middle class in North Korea, you don't have running water, you don't even know what shower is, you don't even like have a 24 hours electricity, you don't have cars, public transportation. You, your days are always planned by the party. I remember one thing I checked when I went to South Korea, someone gift me this notebook and that was a planner. So I never seen a planner in my life, so, "What do you do with this?" Like, "Oh, it's easy, like you want, you're gonna do with this day, this month, you plan your year ahead." And in North Korea, you can never plan your day. That is not even concept for us because we don't own ourselves. And the, the day before or the week before, we have somebody like the leader in the family, the town, everybody got to be associate something in North Korea, and they give us our week's schedule. And the morning-
- CWChris Williamson
So what would that look like? What would, what would that schedule look like?
- YPYeonmi Park
So it usually begins with labor. So it doesn't pay you, but we all revolutionaries, we got to fight for the revolution of the country, right? Even your kids, there's no such a concept of minor in North Korea, or elder. So even if you're like five years old, you got to work. So they basically, they say, "Oh, school kids, this morning get up at 5:00 AM. We go to some collective farm or we go to railroad and breaking the rocks, or we go to dam and we work for the, you know, the construction workers." So from 5:00 AM we work until 8:00 AM. Then sometimes they ask us to bring us our breakfast or go home to eat breakfast, and then we go home to eat breakfast, then we have to go to school afterwards. Then when you go to school, we spend three hours learning about the revolution history and the greatness of our dear leader and how amazing they are. After the brainwashing is done, they say, "Okay, go to get lunch or bring your lunch with you." But if a lot of kids cannot afford to eat, so they don't eat lunch. Then after lunch ends, they take us to the farm again, to collective farm, or the factory, or the construction work zone. But this thing is same thing with the adults and the kids. We all have to work. So entire afternoon we spend on working, and then we work he- helping the farmers with their harvest. When the thing ends, we, they do let us go to have dinner. And then sometimes they don't end the labor until 10:00 PM or 11:00 PM. Then when that ends, we go home and eat dinner and then you sleep out. That same schedule repeats next day, we wake up at 5:00 AM. And North Korea has radio that the regime gives it for free, right? Everybody have to get a radio but of course, it's like all about brainwashing you. And that also radio tells you when to have dinner, when to have lunch, when to get up, like everything is collectivism. You cannot choose like set your own alarm, like, "I'm gonna get up like 10 today, like 9 today." Everybody have to work with same schedule.
- CWChris Williamson
So that's the life of someone that was middle class. What about upper class?
- YPYeonmi Park
I don't even know (laughs) . But because the thing is that in America the, I guess like mainly there's middle class, then some in the bottom and top, right? But most of people still have like somewhere in between the middle, lower middle, middle, and higher middle. But in North Korea, most people in the poverty line, like 90% of all them are poverty. And within 10%, that's like middle class. But then within that 10%, there's like one top percent is like really small percentage of the population who are privileged. So they do of course have banks, their oldest guys have their own pleasure squad. They have, um, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
What's a pleasure squad?
- YPYeonmi Park
It's the girls, uh, they pick up around the country, pick up all the virgin girls who have good family status, and they train them from when they are kids. And then when they become 16 or 17 years old, they take them to the Pyongyang capital. Then they train them to be masseuse, dancer, satisfaction group is like sexual pleasure group. Uh, they divide in different like groups. Then, uh, there is a pleasure squad for the Kim- Kim Jong Un, the second power, the top elite guys all have these groups. Every year, they get a new group to please them. So their lifestyle is like unimaginable. They have private island, they have yacht, they go to even study Switzerland, right? I mean, Kim Jong Un went to school in Switzerland. So the top elite life is like unimaginable lives that than even better than the US president like life in some ways.
- CWChris Williamson
How is this enforced? How do you enforce such a rigid class system?
- YPYeonmi Park
You, well, I mean, in the beginning, North Korea started as a communist, right? Kim Il Sung came in and he was an admirer of Lenin and Stalin and Marx. Then he said, "Okay, we don't like inequality, so why don't we confiscate entire land from people? And especially the capitalists." So they were killing the capitalists and getting all the lands from the, everybody, and nationalize everything. Then they say, "Okay, nobody owns anything now. There's no private property. That's how e- we eliminate inequality, right? Getting rid of everything." After that happened, the, and then Kims were thinking, "Okay, we still need a ruling class who knows better, who decides the party's direction." So they called like, initially they call themselves as the servants of the people...... so these elites were working for us, and they say, "We are the servants for you. And you guys are so grate- you should be so grateful that we have these people wants to, you know, sacrifice their life for the revolution of our country." And then they, and then they were deciding collective farms, everything is collective. We decide who becomes farmers. So the party decides... So in North Korea, when you're born, like your life is determined before even your birth. So when I went South Korea, they're saying like, "What do you want to do with your life?" I was shocked. You know, when... In North Korea, when you're born, depending on what your great-great-grandfather did during the Korean War or during the, like, Japanese colonialization, that my status is determined already by the party. And I think that's the biggest difference here is that people can dream your life and design what you want to do, but in North Korea, that's not even, like, some concept that people understand.
- CWChris Williamson
And then if you mate between different groups, between different castes, it's only a one-way system, right?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
If you mate down, the person that is lower doesn't become upper. It's always the person that's upper becomes lower. So you have an increasingly reducing number of people that are at the top and increasingly larger number of people that are at the bottom.
- YPYeonmi Park
Exactly. So that's the thing, like that's how they prevent mixing between classes. So they-
- CWChris Williamson
The sacrifice that you would have to pay in order to mix between classes as the higher position would be to sacrifice your place?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah, it's a really like... It's so evil that way. They really prevent people to mix around. So they... I mean, there is no such thing in North Korea called like marrying up. You only marry down, no matter what. If you marry somebody lower, you go down with them. You can never go up with them.
- CWChris Williamson
How do people choose their partners then? Let's say that it's not about moving between different classes.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What does dating look like-
- YPYeonmi Park
(laughs) So...
- CWChris Williamson
... in North Korea?
- YPYeonmi Park
So more the average people, the peasants, they are going to... They're peasant, right? So they are going to be forever farmers. But in North Korea, farmer means that you're mostly not... Like, you're going to starve to death. Like farmers, the regime do the collective harvesting and then they take like 98% of the harvest to the elites. So these entire farmers working the farm entire summer and fall and winter, they don't get much food. They get like few grains, few corns a day. So they have to go get the tree barks and to eat the bugs, and that's how they survive. So in North Korea, if you become a farmer, it's almost like a death sentence to you. It's a... It's, there's really no hope of surviving. So I think the regime is... People... I mean, dating is really like dating within your circle, but in the past though, like dating this romance is really shameful thing. So regime even got rid of Mother's Day in 2017 because Kim Jong Un is so paranoid that the, the people's love for the mother going to distract their love for the leader and the party, so they deny every other love other than the love for the Kims and the party. So people used to be always through like family and set up or the party orders, like these girls who go become a pleasure squad members, they get the order from the regime. It's called like an assignment. So they assign who you should marry. And the elites today is all like, the regime assigns. So somebody who met Kims, right, they become very privileged, then they set up a day for them. So regime is literally decides everything for you. You don't have to do anything there, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Is there a marriage ceremony?
- YPYeonmi Park
There is. And then the first thing you have to do is when you become a union, you have to go to a statue of Kims and pay the respect. And, you know, you gotta like, have this like a... that's kind of like oath that you're going to become a good union to support the socialist revolution. And the reason why you marry in North Korea is not about expressing your love or finding your soulmate, but because you want to serve the party better, become a better revolutionary. That's why you're marrying, not for love.
- CWChris Williamson
So immediately after making vows to another person, what the regime's trying to do is, um, redirect that emotion back to the state straight away?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- 16:49 – 20:40
Why is there Perpetual Famine?
- CWChris Williamson
You said about the farmers and about the fact that 98% of their produce gets taken away.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm gonna guess that a lot of farmers must try to sneak bits of their crops to keep stuff behind. Does that happen?
- YPYeonmi Park
No, then you're going to be kicked and tortured and you're going to send to prison camp. Remember in China during the Mao's uh, Five Years Planning, that anybody who got food and got out of the collective thing, they get severely, severely punished. I mean, you don't like... This, this people, when we say these officials, are not just like normal people. They are like the so evil, cruel, cruel like torture, like guards almost, military guards, in that environment you work. It's a very oppressive environment. It's like everybody is a prisoner in North Korea. So you cannot, like, dare to steal things. Well, you can... Literally in the concentration camps, right, the kids are working hard and they raise, uh, pigs for the officials to eat, and then they feed these corns to pigs, and when they have feces come out and there's, in between, there's a corn comes out and this, like people, inmates eat that, and they, the guards beat them and torture them for eating up-
- CWChris Williamson
Even for eating the corn that's gone through a pig already?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. So that's how they treat human beings.And so there is no way you can get away. If you get caught, that's a thing. You, you, you get like become handicapped or like sent to camps again. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So if 98% of the produce is being taken away from the farmers-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... plus there's a famine amongst most of the population-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... do you think that the, there is a bulk of food that's actually being thrown away at the top? Is it just, is there more food being produced than the people who are allowed to eat the food can eat?
- YPYeonmi Park
So here, the North Korea farm really struggles because they cannot even have fertilizer. So as a North Korean kid, we all have to give things to the party. Initially, they promise that, "We are gonna give everything for free to you guys, so give us your liberty and we're gonna take care of you." But eventually they were like, "Bring everything to us," right? We are the ones that are keeping them alive. So because we don't have fertilizer, literally we have assignment to bring poop to school and adults. Like in North Korea, there are poop thieves, literally, because you have assigned to bring a one ton of poop each family or like 200 kilograms per student. So in the wintertime, you don't go to school and then they kick you out of this classroom and go look for poop, so because the farmers need fertilizer and they cannot make the fertilizer. So we need to bring feces that humans make, so and then we bring them to the farmers, then that's how you get all those intestines, the worms you get. Like there's one soldier who got caught and through the DMZ, when he got to South Korea, they were seeing these long, long, long worms in his body and that is the biggest problem in North Korean people, is we are crops that were the human feces mixed, so that we have so many disease from that. So the farm- farming is not... The harvest is not that great and there's so much, um, bribery and corruption. So when that happens and this elites take it away for themselves and they themselves don't give the entire thing for the, for the party. So it's like North Korea is one of the most corrupted countries in the world and yeah.
- 20:40 – 24:48
Crime & Prison Camps
- YPYeonmi Park
- CWChris Williamson
How does the prison system work? I mean, is there a prison or is it just forced labor camps and death?
- YPYeonmi Park
So there are three types of prison camps in North Korea and there's two types of crime too. So one is political crime and second is economic crime. So even you rape somebody or murder somebody... I mean, by the way, rape is not even crime in North Korea. We don't even know what rape is. Like if somebody raped, like that girl gets punished, right? They... It's, it's... I mean men have pleasure squad. Like we don't even know that sexual harassment is a thing. So well, that's not even crime. So let's say murder. Murder is even like as economic, uh, crime. But political-
- CWChris Williamson
Because you've taken a worker away from the party.
- YPYeonmi Park
But then that they don't even punish that much because human life doesn't mean much in that country. We don't even know what human rights is. The most severe crime is a political crime. Like let's say y- your house caught on, caught on fire. You have your children and your mother all like sleeping next to you but you have a portrait of Kims. Every household have the portraits of Kims. So what do you do when the house get caught fire? You don't run with your children on your arms. You have to protect the portrait. Otherwise, the three generation of that family get punished. Or like if there's a newspaper, every newspaper front page gotta have the photos of Kims. But when you didn't see that and then you saw the back of the paper and you rip it by mistake, that's you go to political prison camp and that's a life sentence, you never come out and then you take three generations of your family with you. So there are like concentration camps that is lifetime sentence. Then there is a, uh, labor camps that is more like the murderers or thieves or like, you know, criminals they send. That is like usually the second you come out. The last one is a labor camp, a forced labor camp that's, uh, more... I mean reeducation camp. Those are more like one between three years short amount of sentence. And then of course there's public execution for somebody who cannot be redeemed, just they're gonna kill them anyway. So usually those... If somebody say, "Oh, I don't believe in the party's, like revolutionary ideology," then that person get executed and the family members usually go to concentration camp and then they, they never come out. And the North Korea needs this concentration camp like inmates because they need to do a lot of the, the chemical tests. You know, there's gas chambers, but North Korea does a lot of bio, you see, you know weapons. So they need... They use this as like an inmate and, you know, do all those tests on them and then they have to clean the nuclear debris. So, you know they get deformity when they die from cancer so they keep creating these political prisoners to do all these job that they don't want the normal population to be exposed to.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's not just the public executions that are executions then? There's a lot of other ways that you can be forced to die-
- YPYeonmi Park
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in, in these different levels of, of prison.
- YPYeonmi Park
Average lifespan when you're sent to political prison camp is three months. Most of them do not last more than three months. Yeah. So when you go to political prison camp, it's better off to be dying right now. So that's why when defectors escaping myself, uh, we were ready to kill ourselves. We were not gonna go stand back and be tortured and go to concentration again and die. That's the most painful misery you can die.
- CWChris Williamson
... you were so certain that you would have gone back and you would have been killed, that it's just easier to take your own life instead of suffer?
- YPYeonmi Park
It's not just certainly the North Korean region what they say. So, if you go to China, and then if you're trying to escape to South Korea, that's death sentence. That's a public execution or concentration camp. Like, that's a law. So, we all know that what the law says. So, when North Korean defectors escape, they all like ready to kill themselves.
- 24:48 – 32:16
The North Korean Leaders’ Lineage
- YPYeonmi Park
- CWChris Williamson
Can you explain about how the lineage from Kim Il-sung sort of through to now has worked?
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because it's quite an interesting story.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. So this is another irony, right? Like, in communism, you don't have a king, but North Korea became a kingdom, right? The- it's- the Kims- Kings became not just a king, they became a god for North Koreans. They- so interesting about Kim Il-sung is that, the first Kim, his parents were devout Christians. So Kim Il-sung thought, "Okay, if I copy Bible and telling ..." So, when you become a God, you don't have to be logical, you don't have to explain why things work the way, right? Like, it's- it's a higher power, like, you know, you don't try to understand God's logic, so it becomes much easier to brainwashing population. So he literally copied the Bible saying, "I'm a God, I love you guys so much, so I'm giving you my son, Kim Jong-il, who's gonna work for the, you know, the revolution of the country, but his body dies, but don't bury that, his spirit is with us forever. Therefore, he can read your thoughts and minds and however many hair in your head." Exactly what the Bible says, right? That Jesus came, he died, and his spirit is with us all the time, and that's how I even believe the Kims were op- like, reading my thoughts. I was even afraid to think. People in North Korea, the thought crime and thinking is not like free. So, that's how Kim Il-sung came as a communist, and then he making this country, confiscate all the land, nationalize everything, and he was, I think more dreamer. He really wanted, thought, I think communism would work. I don't know what he thought, but however, when it came to his son, they knew that this thing is for themselves obviously, and brutally pur- purge it every time the new king comes. And now Kim Jong-un time, the top officials lifespan is only three years too. So, Kim Jong-un is killing everybody every three years so they don't get corrupt and then consolidate power, so he cannot start a coup. So, when you become a top elite, if you're staying there long time, you are going to cause- consolidate power and get to build allies. But Kim Jong-un execute them and punishing them every three years. By doing that, he get- eliminate any competition.
- CWChris Williamson
Where do you think the paranoia comes from? Is this something that they've been taught by their parents? Have they got a very strong genetic trait for just being unbelievably anxious? What's going on?
- YPYeonmi Park
(laughs) I think they- they even know what they're doing is not acceptable, right? Like, I mean, he was killing, uh, this top official in a meeting because he was falling asleep in the meeting, and then that guy, right next hour, get executed in the fire squad. Right? So, he knows that people are being loyal to him and people are living in their country not just because they want to live there, it's just out of fear they are doing it. So, I'm sure everybody, he knows that so clearly that he's controlling the people through fear only. Nobody loves him. Nobody actually care- take care of him and nobody wants to be loyal to him on their own. So, I think in a way, that paranoia is legitimate, but he doesn't have to be that way, right? If he tries to make things really better, and why would anybody not want to be there?
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting. It's like a vicious cycle when you mistreat people, because as you mistreat them, they have less faith in you, which means that you need to use more force in order to get them to comply, which means that they believe in you less, which means you need to mistreat them more, which means they believe in you less, and you can see how this happens. I, um-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's crazy thinking about this slow descent as well as you say, it looks as though 50 years ago, like, there might have been a genuine dream that this could have worked with some sort of-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a balance.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think- what do you think was the worst period for- to be alive in North Korea over the last, whatever, sort of, 60 years or so, 70 years?
- YPYeonmi Park
Worst period I think is definitely the '90s after Soviet Union collapsed, right? So, in the North Korea, began in the '50s. After the World War II, the Japan left and then Korea became independent, and Korean War begins, and then, of course, America come defend South Korea, so everything departed in 1953. From there on, North Korean economy was heavily subsidized by Soviet Union and China, because that was the Cold War, they wanted the- the communists to win. So, they were like, why even the Soviet Union going bankrupt themselves, they're heavily subsidizing North Korean economy. But when they collapsed in '89, uh, North Korea, that's when they really knew that communism doesn't work and you just spend everybody's money and that's it. Everybody become dirty, poor, right? So, in the '90s, that's when the regime decided that, okay, the only success measures that we are going to have is keeping the 10% of the population alive. That for them is a success. So, as long as they maintain 10% alive, they think they do not have to do a thing about it.... so until the 90% all die, they're not gonna do a thing about it. So this is why also they want the population to be weak. Why do they starve us even though the international community begging North Korea to feed its own people? They want to give money. The UN want, begging to give food, right? But North Korean regime says no to all the aids and all the medical aids. And the reason why they do that is that because it's so, it's to control people when they're hungry. Like in North Koreans what we do is that when we get up, we eat the breakfast, right? And what we are thinking is, "How are we gonna find lunch?" Once you eat lunch, like, oh, "How am I gonna make like find dinner?" If you make it one day, you think, "Okay, I made it one day on earth. How am I gonna make tomorrow?" You know tomorrow is never guaranteed for you. You don't know like how you're gonna be tomorrow. So in that mind, people are very occupied with just survival. And then can, then they are not going to think about, "What is dictatorship? What is freedom? What is the other world look like?" They don't care about that, and Kim Jong Un have every, every reason to starve the population and he's using the most inhumane torture to be of god right now.
- CWChris Williamson
It's very difficult to think about putting a revolution together when all that you need to worry about is your next meal for you and your family. Yet such a, it's such an effective control mechanism. Obviously it's awfully brutal-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... but it works.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It gets the job done of not permitting any mental freedom-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... for people to think of those higher abstractions. I mean, you know, for you to think, to be surprised by a day planner.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What's a day planner? Why would I need to plan my day? That's planned by the state.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- 32:16 – 39:03
Kim Jong-Il’s Eldest Son
- YPYeonmi Park
- CWChris Williamson
Why didn't Kim Jong Il's eldest son become leader?
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm. So Kim Jong Il's didn't, so Kim Jong Nam who got assassinated, right? So, yeah, that's an interesting story. Uh, Kim Jong Il had four wives, official wives. (laughs) And then like how many mistresses we, we don't even know. There's gotta be armies of them. So among those four, Kim Jong Nam is coming from the first wife, Ri Sol-ju, legitimate wife, and he was really loved by Kim Jong Il. Uh, however, around like early 2000, Kim Jong Nam was visiting Japan to go to Disneyland with a fake passport. On the way back, he got caught and journalists took photos of him and then it became an international, like, embarrassment, 'cause North Koreans are all about hating the West, right? Hating America, hating Japan, hating the Western civilization. And here is the heir to North Korean throne going to Disneyland, so it was such an embarrassment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YPYeonmi Park
And that's when Kim Jong, Kim Jong Il were like almost banished him, and that's how he... But the thing is, Kim Jong Nam was a way more free spirit. He wasn't interested in like power. He wasn't interested in control. He was more interested in like opening up the economy, like to learn from the West, like to learn like what we can do better. And he was more like a believer of a Chinese direction that Chinese Communist Party too, which is opening up the economy. We don't have to change the party, Communist Party, but can we at least open the economy so people get fed, fed. But, of course, North Korean regime are like, "Then no, we don't want that." So his ideology did not meet that what his father dreamed of. And then his third wife, which was also pleasure squad, that she was, I think, a dancer, and she had a son, Kim Jong Un, which was a second son, not even the first son. He was very ambitious. He was very brutal and cruel like his own father. So Kim Jong Il saw Kim Jong Un and then like, "Oh my God, I see myself in you, so you are gonna be the next state leader," and he became one.
- CWChris Williamson
So the Kim Jong Nam, I'm trying to keep-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... up with all of the names here.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
He, um, he was misaligned to be the sort of leader that everybody needed in any case.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think... 'Cause he was killed only-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a couple of years ago. He was assassinated.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but it seems like the trip to Japan was a convenient excuse for somebody that probably didn't meet the criteria to be a leader in any case.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yes. No, he wasn't gonna be that brutal and kill the uncle. Like literally Kim Jong Un is way more brutal than any previous Kim. He used the, this like aircrafts that shoots down the airplane, he used that to execute people, so it makes the people become a dust literally. Like you become into pieces of just blood as like a type of thing. That's how executes people and to show the actual terror. And but as you said, right, you got to use more fear as the time goes by and more fear and fear, fear and there's no ever ending to it. And Kim Jong Un, like literally when he executed his own uncle said, "He has no place to be buried in this land, so make him into dust." That's why he, they used the aircraft that gone almost to shoot him down, so he became into pieces and nobody could collect his bodies afterwards.
- CWChris Williamson
What was the, uh, what was the outcome? Because he got... Was it a nerve agent in Singapore or Japan or somewhere?
- YPYeonmi Park
No, Malaysia.
- CWChris Williamson
Malaysia.
- YPYeonmi Park
And so that was the bro- that was the brother, but the uncle, when Kim Jong Un was killing his uncle, but in Kim Jong Nam's case like the nerve agent that they wrapped in his nose and face and then he just died within few minutes, and his body was sent to Pyongyang afterwards and we don't know what they did with his body, but he was killed in the... And it was so sad because he was providing information to the US intelligence-... for the last 10 years, and then US didn't do a thing about protecting him. Like, he was on that trip meeting a CIA agent in the northern island of Malaysia for two days. After he was giving all the information and when he was about to go home back to his family, they killed him. And this is so sad, like, nobody protects anybody at this point.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you hear the story of why the two women that rubbed the rag in his face did it-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... or why they said... So they claimed that they were... that they'd been told that they were doing a prank on a TV show.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that right?
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they, they told, "Oh, this is gonna be some prank TV show." Just makes no sense. I mean, these girls were, like, not touching themselves or anything. They were going, washing their hands, like, very carefully there. I mean, if that was a prank, why would they do that? So... But the thing is, point is that I think even those girls were victims. They were... I don't, I don't, really don't think that's important they knew or not. The most important thing is how there is no revenge or no accountability when the-
- CWChris Williamson
There's no justice. No.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah, no. Even Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, we all know that when he got chopped off into pieces in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, there's no consequences for killing a dissident. That is the world that we are living in. Like, of course, people talk about injustice all, uh, the time, but this is a clear injustice. These are clear murderers, and yet, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
But it's good control... It's a great control mechanism, right? If-
- 39:03 – 45:22
How Does North Korea Make Money?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in different countries. All right, so how, how does North Korea make its money if it doesn't tax its citizens?
- YPYeonmi Park
Well, I mean, they, they own us. So they... So many ways. So number one is they are the biggest, uh, exporter of crystal meth and opium.
- CWChris Williamson
You're kidding me.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
They're the biggest exporter of crystal meth?
- YPYeonmi Park
Hmm. Yeah, and opium. So they... In North Korea, they cultivate opium in the schoolyards, literally. Every... I remember playing with cutie, pretty flower, and my mom studied chemistry in the university, and her colleagues were picked up to go to these labs making all these drugs. So sad, right? So North Korea, 60% of the even teenagers got addicted to them, these drugs, because when you are sick in North Korea, you don't have medicine. Free healthcare, but I, I had my appendix removed. There is, like, no anesthesia. They cut bones without anesthesia. So when people get sick, they take the drug to relieve the pain, and that's how they become... Like, when little toddler gets a cold and they don't know what to do, ammonia, pneumonia or something, then parents give them, like, opium to relieve the pain. And we don't even know what this thing is because the regime cultivates it, right? We don't have a knowledge of it. So they sell the crystal meth, meth. They export it everywhere to the world. And then they sell a lot of missiles to the Middle East. So all those war that happening in the Middle East, that all those weapons are sold by the North Koreans, selling missiles, weapons. And they were also selling that, the nuclear, uh, the strategy, the technology to Iranians, Pakistanians. They're selling those, like, how to build a nucleus for the dictators, right? (laughs) They have the handbook for that to go for. And not only that, they sell their own people. They sell their workers to Africa. There's a lot of dictators in Africa. So these North Korean workers go to Africa and, and build the statues for the dictators, because North Koreans are good at building statues, right? That's, like, what all we got. So all the statues you see of dictators in Africa are built by North Koreans. And then they send the work... Their works in Qatar, Poland, in Siberia, in China, and they work as cutting wood or there's like ily... going to miner, so...
- CWChris Williamson
Would it be... If you were chosen to go to one of these other countries, presumably you're going to live under slightly more luxurious circumstances than you're going to... No, you're going to be even worse in Poland or in Africa?
- YPYeonmi Park
Absolutely. They build a camp for you. When you go abroad, they build a camp, like prison camp, and all the banners about the... propaganda banners and statues and the portraits of Kims. And then they are not free to leave that, that, that building or the camp. And there's a Vice documentary they did about this, people working in Siberia, uh, North Korean workers. They get zero, zero freedom, and they work 15 hours a day without any even, like, s- safety equipment. And the entire money they make goes to the regime.... so their food even quality is so- so they are so, like, hungry, they are, like, eating the trash that other people, like, throw away. But they cannot even go out, so there's somebody who is in charge to go out and picking up trash, food, and bring it to them. And even then, of course, North Koreans are grateful. And they go to, like, Syria, even before I mean, they, they go all around the country. The North Korean also women now, it's like a chi-... they are trying to attract the Chinese tourists to North Korea. And the government runs brothels so they can attract the Chinese tourists to come and have sex with these young girls. And then, of course, entire money goes to regime. And then, have these restaurants, right? The North Korean restaurants in China, in a lot of European countries, these girls go and they have to perform and sing and make the food, but they, they cannot leave the building.
- CWChris Williamson
I was in London-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... last year, and Michael texted me-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and said, "You should really go to this restaurant."
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But you can't, you don't say anything, don't tell them that I've suggested that you should go, don't mention my name, don't do this, that, and the other. Uh, do you think that might be one of them in London? Is there one in London?
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm, I'm not sure about exactly in London. Some of them in other European country, like Vienna I heard. And tons of them in China, Russia, in Cambodia, Laos, I mean, Thailand. Uh, really all around the world. But I'm not-
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe Malice is just trying to get me kidnapped. Maybe he's-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe he's trying to send me somewhere where I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get taken to-
- YPYeonmi Park
But they do kidnap people. It's not a joke. They do kidnap people. They have all cameras and then if they come into somebody they recognize as valuable, they kidnap them. S- yeah. It's, they... Because, I mean, North Korea, like, kidnaps the Japanese citizens. Remember in the past? They kidnap everyone in the world to come to North Korea and then they use them as a training spies and teaching them the language. Yeah. So North Korea kidnapped so many Japanese people and so many people all around the world. And not only that, one day Kim Jong Un was like, "Okay, I like sushi and I like really have good sushi." So what do they do? What do you think they did?
- CWChris Williamson
Kidnapped a bunch of Japanese sushi rest- chefs-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and restaurateurs. Yeah, exactly.
- YPYeonmi Park
They went to Japan and kidnapped one of the best sushi chef. (laughs) And then Kim Jong Un one day said, "I really wanna make good movies in North Korea." So what would they do?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, I remember this. I watched this on the new Netflix series where he kidnapped the, the man and his wife, right?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah, the m- the biggest movie directors in South Korea.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YPYeonmi Park
And they kidnapped them through Hong Kong, so that's also good. They take kidnapped people. It's not a joke. They were in Hong Kong and-
- CWChris Williamson
If Malice is, if Malice is trying to stitch me up and get me kidnapped through a-
- 45:22 – 50:10
North Korean Defectors
- CWChris Williamson
pissed. All right, so-
- YPYeonmi Park
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... do you know how many defectors have left North Korea? Have you got any idea?
- YPYeonmi Park
So here is the thing. Uh, nobody knows. That's a clear answer. But we can estimate. There are now 33,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea. And then America is only over 200 defectors, and UK actually got a lot. I'm sure it's like sever- less than thousand, but still bigger than American community. And there are about up to 300,000 North Korean defectors in China hiding and became, uh, enslaved by Chinese people. So, but then we don't even know how many died along the journey. Like, my father died. He never made it and then we knew so many people who died in, along the journey. So we don't know how many left and died and made it. But right now, approximately, there are 300,000 North Korean defectors in China who are modern-day slaves, and very few in the US and some in the UK, and South Korea is a major. But the thing is, after Kim Jong Un became in power he literally... of course, country cannot even afford electricity, he put the, this, like, high electricity on the, the wire fences of entire border and that's not even there. Put the machine guns with the guards every 10 meters and then, on top of that, he buries landmines on the entire border, so entire country became a concentration camp. So last year only two people escaped to South Korea and then we-
- CWChris Williamson
In the whole year, the entirety of the year-
- YPYeonmi Park
But-
- CWChris Williamson
... two people made it out?
- YPYeonmi Park
But the thing is, they were not even coming from North Korea. They were coming from the ones who already escaped in China and then escaped, so there's no new escape from coming from North Korea anymore. So, the defection kind of stopped at this point.
- CWChris Williamson
Is the worst place for someone that's North Korean to be, after North Korea, China?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's, I don't know even how to say worse, what's worse, right? Like, in North Korea, you, you can die from starvation but at least with some dignity. You don't get raped, you don't get, like, sold, you don't get... as long as you don't go to concentration camp, but when North Koreans go there, we... like, we become like pigs. They say, "Even if I kill you, we cannot go to Chinese police," right? Because the Chinese regime gonna catch us, send us back. So then basically, they can rape you, they can whip you, and they can take your organs out. Why China is the biggest organ provider 'cause, I mean, they got, they got Xinjiang Uighurs, they got Falun Gong people, they got Tibetans, they got North Koreans. So North Koreans, when they go to China, uh, if you're unlucky, you go get your organs out and die. Uh, if you... better chances of you surviving in that country is becoming a brothel and get raped every single second or being married to Chinese farmers and who's gonna beat you and torture you or, like, there are towns, like, the entire town cannot afford the women, so they buy one girl and the entire men in the town rape them a lot.And they- you- this is the 21st century, and this is happening right now. And of course, the mainstream media do not talk about this because of this Chinese Communist Party. Nobody wants to, you know, attack them. They wanna have a business in China. So, even Hollywood all talk about this justice, whatever thing is, they don't want to cover this.
- CWChris Williamson
Why aren't they covering North Korea?
- YPYeonmi Park
Because China. China sponsors Kim Jong Un, and Hollywood gets funding from H- China, right? They need money and they need to sell their movie in China. American corporation like, like even like NBA, LeBron James, look at him, what he says, right? John Cena recently.
- CWChris Williamson
You see the John Cena thing where he did that struggle session apology?
- YPYeonmi Park
Oh, shame on humanity. I'm like, this is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. This is the worst regime that exists in this today's world. They run North Korea. They run, I mean, they genocided Xinjiang Uyghurs. Their birth rate fell 47% last year because they, uh, infertile everybody. They give them like, "This is the vitamin, why you don't you take?" Giving them shots, make them that they cannot reproduce. This is genocide. And this Chinese can still be around, and there are so many people who say, "Oh, how about America? America is worse than China," right? It's just, it's- it's such an interesting time to be living in- in- in this country right now. There's no more virtue. There's no more justice, it seems like.
- 50:10 – 1:01:04
Should We Be Concerned About China?
- CWChris Williamson
It does really feel like there's this huge blind spot. It-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I- I understand that commercial interests mean that certain organizations will pay huge prices in order to criticize China.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But it sur- it surprises me in a world that's so decentralized, where you have individual creators that can put things out on YouTube or even blockchain-hosted video hosting websites now, you have people with huge, huge platforms that are talking about everything, anything and everything, there is a topic and a- a Reddit thread and a Discord server and a- you know, there's a Twitter account for it. It seems so bizarre to me that there's this huge human rights violation going on that nobody's paying any attention to. And yet, animal rights, global warming-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... are these huge movements. Have you got any idea why, culturally, it's not being picked up more by people?
- YPYeonmi Park
Because whatever these twisted people minds they got, right? Whatever thing, I mean, the thing is, people, America especially, obsess with slavery. I mean, it happened, sorry, 18th century, it happened a long time ago, and there are literally people right now being enslaved in this 21st century. So the thing is, if the slavery that matters that happened like few century ago, why the slavery that's happening right now is not matter to you? And that's the- the biggest hypocrisy is that. If the 18th slavery matters, why this kind of slavery, that doesn't bother you at all, right? This is why it's all about politics became almost like identity politics. It's all about their narrative, all about bringing their own power. So, I think this we are seeing that. I mean, we know that Hitler became voted to come into power. He didn't like start a coup. People voted for him to become on the power. And Venezuela too, right? Even Cuba as well. It wasn't... So even North Korean Kim Il-sung too, like people voted for him. "We wanted him." And there's no no- no guarantee it's not gonna happen in the West. It is possible. I mean, it happened with Nazi Germany. So that, I think, when people lose that what is right, they lose a sense of... I think right now it's like everything, I mean the biggest problems, these kids that have, I saw at Colombia is their- their- their pronouns. If somebody don't know, do not call their right pronoun, what is cis, whatever this weird X, Y, Z, wha- whatever this thing is, this is the biggest oppression they ever feel in their lifetime. And we are raising a generation or brainwashing a generation to think that is the biggest problem in the world. And they're keeping them in the bubble. Like they do not understand how rare it is for the individuals to be free, and even know what individualism is. Like in North Korea, there's no word for I. We don't even know the word I. So, when I went to South Korea, they will ask me like, "Introduce yourself." And this is all North Koreans do, like, "We from North Korea, we from Hyesan. We love, like, this food." And they're like, "What do you mean we? Like you, you I." And in North Korea that's how they, like, even get rid of this concept like freedom, human rights, and I. And the fact that we know what I is, that's a privilege. And of course, these people, for them is the biggest oppression is that, you know, the pronouns. So yeah, I don't know. I'm- I'm... Are you hopeful? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Not really, to be honest.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah. Yeah, no.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, it- it seems like China is such an obvious target for everybody to be concerned about.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
The militarization of the South China Sea, I watched some documentary about this the other day. That's terrifying.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They are taking over territory in northern Pakistan. They've got this Belt and Road Initiative. They are exporting more and more technology around the world. They've got disinformation campaigns. And then you see how easy it is to socially or culturally hijack countries like the UK or the US with particular movements. And even now...... the skepticism around, is this actually people from the UK or the US talking about this problem online-
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... or is this just state actors from Russia or from China-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that are talking about this? When you combine all of this and then what I really would love to educate myself more on is the long-term plans of China. I know obviously there's- there's no booklet somewhere where they've just said, "Oh, this is what we fancy doing." But obviously, the rumors and the obvious implic- implication is that they would want to expand the CCP across the entire world.
- YPYeonmi Park
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And like, that's an existential threat, that's a threat to the entire globe.
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And because companies want to make money and because governments don't want to lose out on import and export duty or don't want to make waves, nobody's talking about it. Like, if you leave a problem longer and longer-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... it just gets harder and harder to fix. And-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I mean, what more obvious of a potential issue could you have than a global pandemic released from-
- YPYeonmi Park
(sighs)
- CWChris Williamson
... perhaps a Wuhan lab? Like-
- YPYeonmi Park
No, I- I don't know if that's-
- 1:01:04 – 1:06:18
The Repercussions of Yeonmi Defecting
- YPYeonmi Park
right? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What have been some of the repercussions of you defecting? Have you ever been threatened or has there been intelligence surveillance ever done on you or anything like that?
- YPYeonmi Park
Well, I mean, where do I even begin? Uh, when I spoke out, uh, South Korea, of course, intelligence informed me that I, um, I'm on the killing list of Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-un's killing list is not a joke, right? (laughs) If he wants to kill somebody, he's going to kill somebody. So it was, it was good of South Korea intelligence to inform me that, so I appreciate it. But, I mean, we know that no country is going to protect me. If Kim Jong-un wants to kill me, he's going to go ahead and do it, and there's, of course, no precau- precaution for doing that. Uh, not only that though, I expected that to happen, but of course, because I spoke out, everybody that I left behind, the three generations of my family and even including my neighbors, uh, had to denounce me on YouTube, the North Koreans show have, the propaganda channel. Denounced me that I'm the puppet of, of the West, supporting the puppet of the West. And this is the other bizarre thing about YouTube is talking about the fake thing and censoring people. They censor my videos, but they do not censor the video ca- made by the North Korean dictatorship. It is hilarious. You can see that video and then all my families are gone afterwards and I don't know if they've been executed or sent to prison camps. And of course, after that, North Korea had a smear campaign against me, creating... You know, North Korea, another way they're making money is through hacking. Did you hear that? How many Bitcoin, Bitcoin they stole and how many, uh, hackers they raised? So they attacked even the UK health insurance companies, they have done it. Of course, they, they, through hackers, they created so many smear campaign against me. So that's what they good at, the character assassination. So h-
- CWChris Williamson
What did that... I was going to say, what, what were their accusations about your character?
- YPYeonmi Park
So it was that I'm a CIA spy, so I get paid from the CIA and saying lies. And then I, uh, lied North Korea has no starvation, is the best country on earth and everything's good, but she's trying to become a sensational saying that there's poverty, there's oppression. And they're lying about me that, uh, the worst thing they came up was that I was very individualistic and ambitious as a young girl. So in North Korea, being ambitious and in- individualistic is, like, the worst thing can be, right? So on the video they say, "She was the poisonous mushroom that grew up in a pile of trash." That she was a young girl so ambitious and so individualistic. And in the West, like, that thing is embraced here. (laughs) And of course, then, though another thing they, they make a problem is that I said I climbed a mountain before my escape to cross the river, but they went to Google Maps and Google, they, they measured the altitude of the mountain, but then the altitude wasn't a mountain, it was a high hill. But as a young girl, how do I know what altitude do you call a hill or mountain? I still don't know.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, so they used a discrepancy in how high the hill was-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... versus a mountain to discredit-
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... whether or not you lived in the place that you lived. So what was the implication of that? That you were never in North Korea?
- YPYeonmi Park
No, no, no. Thank God North Korea, because before then there's been a lot of, uh, sympathizers of the Communist Party. What they were saying, they went to Google Map and checked and then what she climbed was not hill, I mean it wasn't a mountain, it was a hill. And then North Ko- then eventually they say, "Why does she even speak English? She's not like North Korean. She's like a fake person, like, pretending to be North Korean." But thank God, North Korea released my birth certificate (laughs) and they, they released, released my father's birth certificate. They released my father's sentences to labor camp and my mom's, like, entire record, so I am confirmed North Korean, thank God. But the sympathizers are idiots asking me, "So what's your passport? Show me your passport. How do I know that you're North Korean?" So I'm like, "If I have a passport, why would I even escape?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YPYeonmi Park
I would have flew here, right? Why would I even cross the Gobi Desert? (laughs) So this is how dumb the world is. I just cannot even fathom. But thankfully North Korea confirmed that my name is Yeonmi Park, I was born in this year, that day, Hyesan-
- CWChris Williamson
And you're on the kill list.
- YPYeonmi Park
Exactly. So they did way more good to me than bad because in America pe- I mean, I don't know, in the West, people really sympathize North Korea and hate America, and North Korea is the enemy of America, therefore they love North Korea. So I became the target from the Marxists, Leninists, Maoists, Communists, and of course, like, anti-Western people, everybody and, and now I'm the enemy of the woke. So (laughs) I have a lot of enemies.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a big list. You're on everyone's kill list. Well, look-
- YPYeonmi Park
(laughs) Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, if people want to check out
- 1:06:18 – 1:06:57
Where to Find Yeonmi
- CWChris Williamson
more of your stuff, where should they go?
- YPYeonmi Park
Yeah, they can come to my YouTube channel. It's called The Voice of North Korea, and they can find me on Twitter and Instagram. Not on TikTok though. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YPYeonmi Park
Everything else, yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeonmi Park, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming on.
- YPYeonmi Park
Thank you, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few months. And don't forget to subscribe. It makes me very happy indeed. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:06:58
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